Making GPS Fun: GPS Game Ideas

Once you have used a GPS unit to travel to a location or find destinations such as hotels and restaurants, you may wonder how you ever lived without one. However, you might not have thought about using your GPS device to play games. Here are some ideas to get you started.

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Are you looking for some fun games to play with your GPS? Look no further than the following suggestions.

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Geocaching

Perhaps the most popular of all GPS games is geocaching. This high-tech treasure hunt can provide hours of healthful, interesting fun. Game players use a handheld GPS device to hunt down a "treasure," which is typically an inexpensive trinket, trackable coin, or "bug." These treasures, known as geocaches, are stored in waterproof containers such as plastic kitchen storage containers or small lidded buckets and the like. The person who creates the geocache logs the coordinates on a website such as Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site. To play these GPS games, log on to a geocaching site and find the coordinates of a geocache in your area. Use your handheld GPS unit to track it down. Don't forget to leave a "treasure" in place of the one you score.Find out more about this type of GPS game in the Bright Hub article What Is Geocaching? by Michele McDonough.

Photo credit: sxc.hu/Julia Freeman-Woolpert

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Geo Golf

There are several GPS games that are related to or include geocaching. One such game is called geo golf. Geo golf is a fun way to familiarize yourself with a city or neighborhood and does not involve a ball, tee, or club. Nine or eighteen waypoints act as the "holes" on the golf course. Players try to get as close to each waypoint as they can and log their distance. If a player makes it within one yard of the waypoint, that would be logged as a hole in one. Two yards would be considered two strokes and so on. Play against others or play the game on your own by challenging yourself to reach a certain score. Check out Geo Golf Rules at GPS Games for more information about playing geo golf.Photo credit: sxc.hu/shelly elaine

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Amazing GPS Race

Another of the geocaching-related GPS games is fondly known as the Amazing GPS Race. Families or teams are all given a list of several geocache locations, although not necessarily in the same order. The teams race to one location after another using their GPS devices. At each geocache location, the game coordinator will provide a task for each team to complete. This may be simple such as a word puzzle or mechanical puzzle (think "Rubik's Cube) or something a bit more challenging such as crossing a rope bridge. The first family or team to complete the race successfully is the winner.

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For some more ideas on fun GPS games, check out GPSGames.org. Also be sure to check out the extensive and ever-expanding collection of articles on all things GPS right here at Bright Hub!